[Steve Kruse]

Peter Furth is a civil and environmental engineering professor at Northeastern University,

and co-author of a new report out from the Mineta Transportation Institute that looks at

how varying levels of "traffic stress" on different city streets can limit where people are

willing to ride. 

Furth and his colleagues mapped out the different levels of stress on the streets of San Jose,

California, and they find that while many streets are calm enough for most riders, they're

sliced up by streets with high levels of stress. High-stress streets are measured as those

with high speed limits, limited or non-existent bike lanes and signage, and large distances

to cross at intersections. 

Furth's maps show how high stress streets create islands of low-stress bikeability that are

disconnected from each other.       Read more about this here and here.

But where do you feel are the very worst "high stress" sections of road in/near Princeton ?

My list would include:

                 - Cherry Valley Road (sections of it)

                 - Quaker Road (since it has no shoulder) between Province Line and Princeton Pike

                 - State Road (206 between Cherry Hill and Herrontown, over the ridge)

                 - the stretch of 206 (Lawrence Rd, Stony Brook bridge/dip, Quaker Road egress)

                 - the stretch of Harrison before/after it crosses Nassau/27 (road is narrow)

                 - any crossing of Route 1 (Harrison, Washington, Alexander, Scudders Mill inbound)

If you have an opinion and want it registered, please send a quick email to pjp...@gmail.com

[Steve Kruse]

> But where do you feel are the very worst "high stress" sections of road in/near Princeton ?

        Thank you to all who replied.  We think it will be important to flag or somehow
        denote the not-so-fun sections of our road network in the upcoming bike map.

        We've been strategizing about what to put on the cover of said map. It will need to
        be interesting, and eye-catching. I got to thinking this New Yorker Cartoon by Harry
        Bliss would be ideal, except (a) it is no doubt pricey, and (b) one of the protagonists
        is riding sans helmet, not to mention other transgressions (c) surely I'm joking. So fresh
        ideas may be needed - stay tuned.

        The cartoonist/essayist Tim Kreider recently published an entertaining paean to cat
        ownership. There's a link to it here. A couple of years ago, as part of a series on
        Anxiety, the NYTimes published Kreider's essay Cycle of Fear wherein he, an
        anxiety-prone cat person, reports that cycling in Manhattan gives him the feeling of
        being "most fully and electrically alive".
       
        Giving equal time to the opposing view, here's a clip of "Eddie", cycling's most cinematic
        dog.